Slaughterhouse
by Plesiosaur
Summary: Real World AU Bubbline request fic! There's a killer on the road. A cabin in the woods hides a dark secret. But with no leads and no witnesses Finn and Jake are up against a brick wall. Maybe the mysterious medical examiner Dr Bonnibel Sugar can shed some light on this impossible case? Or maybe she has her own reasons to let the trail go cold. There's a stranger up ahead...


**Surprise one shot! And neither of the two I was going to upload, I'm sorry guys. But this one grabbed my imagination and I had to write it, I will be posting the other two soon enough. Thank the glorious ArlaDairy31 for this unusual request, real world(ish) Serial Killer Bubbline.**

 **So, news! I'm getting set up to cross-post everything I've ever written in this ship over on AO3! Don't worry, I'm not gonna stop posting here too, but if you want to reread any of my stories minus the typos I will be going back through them all and fixing them when I repost over there. I'd do it here too but I just don't think I have the patience. But feel free to look me up over there too, I'll be using the same author name unless it's already taken.**

 **Special thanks to my very good buds abelmayfair and CountingWithTurkeys for their help proofing and suggesting edits to this story. Also to my homie RaInBoWsKuLlDrOpS for being a real stand up gal and helping me think of a title. I love you guys, you're all awesome.**

 **Content warning: murders, police!cops, mutilation, bloodletting, literal psychopathy, Mary Shelley Would Be Proud, The Fly again (I don't even like that movie?), murder nerds, Finn is lightly fuckboy flavoured.**

* * *

"Chief, you need to see this."

It wasn't often that Finn Mertens was shocked by anything anymore. He was a Chief Inspector, he'd been working his way steadily through the ranks of his police department for years and he'd seen more than his fair share of bodies. But the look on his Superintendent's face as he handed over a case file was grim.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Jake." Finn said with a wry smile. Whatever could have shaken his oldest friend that badly was going to need every shred of humour he could possibly bring to bear against it, he could feel it in his gut.

"How many murders have we worked together over the years?"

"More than I care to remember. Why?"

"This one... At first I thought it was something new, but I remember something similar. Way back when I was a pup, wet behind the ears. I was still in the academy, it was during the unit where we covered public relations."

"You going someplace with this story, Jake?" Finn asked with a eye roll. When his immediate superior wasn't eating, rambling, or complaining that he never got to see his wife and kids he was a damn good officer. This wasn't one of those times and Finn wanted to get on with his day.

"Yeah, I've seen this exact MO before. Way back. It was a historic cold case then, the photos were from the mid-fifties. Worries about copycat killers meant they kept the details out of the press at the time. The bodies of eight women were found in a secluded patch of woodland, each of them completely exsanguinated." the Superintendent replied with a frown.

Finn had already started flipping through the case file and his eyebrows only drew together further in confusion as he read.

"Three bodies, all female aged between twenty and thirty five. All conventionally attractive, slim build, all drained of their blood. All of them women of disrepute, if you know what I mean." Jake explained as he looked over his friend's shoulder

"Sex workers?" Finn asked.

"Nah, not exclusively. Scumbags."

"That's not a nice way to talk about ladies, Jake."

"And it's sexist as hell to assume all women are innocent and good just because of their gender. Victim one was known to the authorities as a physically abusive mother, her kids are in the care of their father now and he seems decent enough. She was always beating them, begging social services not to have them removed, that kinda thing. Victim two was the local heroin dealer. She avoided a murder charge last year due to lack of evidence, apparently uniformed officers were wondering why she'd gone to ground because usually she spends more time in the cells than out. She dabbled in prostitution but mostly as a pimp, guess she didn't want to get her hands dirty. And victim three was a rising star politician riding a wave of hard-right racism and welfare cuts. Not a well liked woman, she'd been linked to grassroots neo-Nazis and a butt-load of shady business dealings. People trafficking, modern slavery. Real bad stuff. None of them were good or innocent." Jake replied.

"And they all turn up dead, hung upside down and drained from a single slash to the throat like slaughterhouse animals. Sounds like none of them were particularly liked. The whole county has motive for these three." Finn mused.

"The last time this happened it was eight locally hated women and zero leads." Jake reminded him.

"More than sixty years ago. It can't be the same killer. A son or grandson, maybe?"

"Or granddaughter. Equal opportunities, man. The killer could be a woman."

Finn snorted at his friend's gallows humour and ignored the subtle jab at his sexist prejudices. They both knew the statistics, women were very unlikely to murder face to face or with an edged weapon.

"There's no way it could be the same killer. Right?" Finn ventured after a long moment. He closed the file, not caring to stare further at the corpses strung from the trees like grotesque oversized bats.

"Unless he's more than eighty years old and still strong enough to overpower a woman in her prime then hoist her body into a tree, no." Jake replied heavily. "I can't figure out how they managed to match the original killer's MO so perfectly. Either they know who he is or they've seen the files from sixty years ago. So we're looking at a whole family of slaughterhouse murderers-"

"Or the killer is a cop." Finn finished heavily. That was an unsettling thought, it sat like a block of ice in his stomach.

"Yeah. And we've got no leads. Uniform are out canvassing the local towns, finding out who was the last to see these three alive. The bodies are down in the morgue waiting for Dr Sugar to examine them. Until then... Well I thought you'd want to know, Chief."

"Thanks, bro. Let me know when you get an update."

Jake nodded and retreated back to his own desk, leaving Finn alone with his files and whirling thoughts. If there was a killer on the loose the public needed to be warned. And if history was going to repeat itself then there'd be more victims. Many more.

...

 _WOMEN WARNED TO BE VIGILANT AS THREE BODIES FOUND IN WOODS_

 _'Slaughterhouse Ripper' Targeting Locals_

 _Police have announced that the bodies of three local women have been found in suspicious circumstances-_

"Hey, Bonnibel!"

The voice calling her name pulled her attention from the newspaper article she'd been reading and it was only the force of habit that shoved a fake smile across her face at the unwelcome interruption. It only took a fraction of a second for Bonnibel to find the appropriate personality mask and slide it into place, she knew how to fake it perfectly for men like him. He only saw what he wanted to see.

"Finn, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I thought I'd swing by and see how the autopsy reports were coming along."

"They sent the Chief Inspector to pick up paperwork?"

"I just wanted to be out of the office for a while. This Slaughterhouse Ripper thing has everyone tense." He leaned in and motioned for her to come closer, as though the draws of refrigerated corpses might overhear his secrets. "There's stuff about this case that wasn't in the papers."

"Such as?" Bonnie prompted when he failed to explain. Finn sucked in a dramatic breath and let the silence stretch just a little more before he replied, waiting until he was certain he had her full attention. His manipulation technique was sloppy and crude, Bonnie thought distractedly.

"This has happened before. Way back in fifty five, they found eight missing local ne'er do wells strung up just like this. We were hoping you could give us something to go on." he whispered.

"Unless you want to borrow my sci-fi library and scour it for time travelling serial killers then I'm afraid I can't tell you anything new." she replied. His face dropped comically.

"Nothing?"

"Toxicology was clean, no knockout drugs were in any of their bloodwork. No other injuries were present except for an old bruise to the child abuser's leg and some puncture marks within the wound itself, probably from an irregularity in the blade they used. No other signs of trauma apart from the surgically precise incision at the base of the throat. It's almost like these women were a willing sacrifice."

"Like... a demonic blood ritual or something?"

"More likely they weren't aware that the killer was about to murder them, I have no idea how they were persuaded to hang upside down from a tree but whoever did this has done it before. They knew exactly how to get as much blood as possible out of the bodies and there's no hesitation marks or practice cuts. Just a single incision severing the jugular, carotid artery and windpipe with a couple of small punctures embedded to the side. Always in the same place. Brain death would have occurred in less than a minute."

He hummed in acknowledgement but didn't reply immediately, staring down at the toxicology reports she handed him.

"This case just gets weirder and weirder." Finn said, mostly to himself. "Where'd the blood go? If they've done this before then where are the other bodies?"

"Most likely they're someone with a background in bloodletting and meat preparation. Maybe someone who worked on a farm or in an abattoir. There's a few religious groups that bleed food animals for cleanliness purposes, it's not dissimilar to how Halal meats and other religious foods are prepared." Bonnie replied. He shot her a look, whether because she was being just that bit too clinical for his delicate sensibilities or because he hadn't needed an answer to his rhetorical question wasn't immediately clear to her.

"The last thing we need is the press jumping on this as a potentially religiously motivated murder. One of the victims was a far-right neo-Nazi, it's already controversial." Finn sighed as he ran a hand through his thinning hair.

"I'm not saying the person who did this was religiously motivated. There are plenty of reasons to slaughter an animal by bloodletting, ritual cleansing is just the most common of them. All I know for certain is that whoever did this was knowledgeable about anatomy and knew how to handle a blade."

Finn was wandering around the morgue now, poking at various drawers and implements like a kid who'd never been told to keep his hands to himself. Bonnie frowned; she liked him well enough for a neurotypical but his visits were always disruptive and she wanted to get on with her work.

"Finn? I've got a heart attack DOA to dissect, do you need anything else?" she prompted him wearily. His face immediately flushed pink with embarrassment and Bonnie had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. This _again_?

"I was just wondering if, y'know, you might wanna get a beer tonight? Or tomorrow, that'd work for me too. You're so tightly wound, Bon, you gotta relax. And we've been friends for years. One beer, it won't even be a date. Just friends from work, hanging out. What do you think?" he asked, avoiding her eyes.

"I think you're a very nice man and I'm glad you're my friend but I don't want to go for a drink with you. I'm sorry, Finn." she replied steadily, the same way she did every time he asked her out.

"Are you seeing someone else?" he pressed.

"That is none of your business. I don't need to justify it, 'no' is a complete sentence all on its own. Get out of my morgue, Finn. I have dead people to cut up."

"One of these days you'll say yes."

"No I won't. Go on, say hi to Jake for me."

He left with a good natured shake of his head and a rueful smile. Finn Mertens had been asking her out steadily for as long as she'd been dissecting murder victims for the police and honestly any other guy would have taken the hint by now, Bonnie thought with her usual level of annoyance. Once day he'd get over his unrequited crush on her and make an average girl averagely happy, she was sure of it. Just not her.

It hadn't ever been her intention to keep her sexuality a secret and she really didn't care if anyone knew she occasionally brought women home. In fact she'd outed herself as a lesbian a few times but men tended to just ignore that because she presented as high femme and therefore her objections were invisible to them. She never had time to date anyway. Not with a full time job and her... side projects. Besides, her unique neurology made it impossible to get close to people romantically and she was fine with that. Her life was full enough, it didn't require her to allow another body to share her space for more than the time required to get off. Pushing all thoughts of Finn and his awkward flirting from her mind Bonnie instead focussed on her next job. Her eyes flickered briefly over the patient details and she scowled; looked like her hopes had been dashed. The dead woman was only thirty eight, easily within the age range, but she'd fucked herself up with steroids since her late teens and that had probably brought on the heart attack that killed her. Professional athletics was a cutthroat business.

"Hello, Susan. Should've cut down on the muscle juice if you didn't want to end up on my slab. Let's see if either of those kidneys are worth saving." Bonnie told the dead woman as she pulled open the steel corpse drawer. She didn't expect a reply and didn't receive one; that was fine though. Most corpses stayed quiet, in her experience. Or screamed. But she was working on that. She was so close to success.

...

Finn wished he was in the local pub having a drink with the gorgeous and mysterious medical examiner but he was still chained to his desk pouring through the useless reports that uniformed officers had provided from the murder victims' friends and families. Nothing, no leads, no clues. There was precious little evidence at the scene of the crime either. All three victims' homes were clean and the only thing anyone had managed to find in the woods was the ripped label from the type of thermos that could be bought anywhere. It bore a partial fingerprint but thanks to the heavy rain they'd had recently it was too damaged to be useful to anyone. It was infuriating, it made his head hurt. Over his substantial career Finn had developed something of an instinct regarding murder cases, they were rarely as dramatic as the movies made them look but still far from simple to solve. He had a feeling in his gut that the killer was close by and if he could only step back and see the bigger picture he'd find the answer right under his nose. Finn's coffee grew cold and his ashtray filled with cigarette butts as the hours ticked by but no epiphany came to him. It was past midnight when he left the precinct, dejected and brooding.

As he was driving home a sleek sedan almost smashed into him at the traffic lights and he lay into the horn angrily. It was too late and he was too tired to give a fuck that there were rows of houses on either side where families had probably just been woken up by his noise.

"Sorry!" the driver called through her window as she sped away. There wasn't time for him to tell her not to drive like a fucking psychopath before the car was disappearing along the road leading out of town.

"Fucking bitch." Finn fumed to himself as he drove. "Hope the fucking Slaughterhouse Ripper gets you."

He immediate felt guilty, what sort of Chief Inspector wished that on an innocent lady driver, even one who should probably stop borrowing her husband's powerful car? He could technically have pulled her over or called uniformed officers on her but he didn't care to drag out his night any more than he had to and she was probably on her way home to be with her man anyway. Besides he had to be back in work at seven the next morning, by the time he got something to eat and wound down enough to sleep he'd be lucky to have even five hours of rest. So he went home and picked half-heartedly at a microwave burrito before collapsing exhausted into his bed. He'd forgotten all about the woman driving out of town, it was hardly important. She was in a vehicle, unless the Slaughterhouse Ripper could run faster than a speeding car and had the superhuman strength required to force a locked door open from the outside she should be safe enough.

The encounter hadn't been forgotten by the driver though. Bonnie sped through the night and seized the writhing worm of panic in her mind in an iron grip. Yes that had been Finn but he was tired, it was late, he wasn't going to follow her. He hadn't even recognised her so there was no way he'd bother to pull over, call for backup and end up questioning her over the contents of her back seat. Bonnibel might be a diagnosed psychopath but she wasn't stupid. She knew that if she had to she could talk her way out of trouble. It seemed ironic to her that Finn was the kind of man who labelled women 'psycho' for all kinds of reasons without realizing that the woman he was desperate to bed was in fact literally a medically diagnosed psychopath. His ex was a psycho because she dumped him for trying to manipulate her but somehow he never noticed that Bonnie was cold, calculating, almost emotionless behind her shallow charm. It was a lesson that young Bonnibel had absorbed the moment she began to grow into womanhood; most men could overlook pretty much anything if it was accompanied with a pretty face and a flash of shapely breasts. Finn thought she was sweetness and light personified, even if he did follow she could simply charm him into not seeing what was in front of him. She'd done it before. Her knuckles gradually relaxed enough to regain their colour as she loosened her grip on the steering wheel and forced the tension out of her body.

As she sped along the deserted road Bonnie's mind whirled with calculations. The lab technicians had left later than usual that night and it delayed her sneaking back into the morgue. How long had Susan Armstrong been lying dead before someone called the ambulance? There was every chance that the tissue she'd harvested was already degraded beyond use. Was it worth driving fast enough to draw attention to herself for?

With a muttered oath in fluent German Bonnie slowed her vehicle back to the speed limit and cast a dark glower at the cooler on the back seat. If they hadn't had to put in such a long day because of the bodies in the woods she'd have been there already. And now she had to find a completely new set of kidneys. Fantastic.

That's when she saw the hitchhiker up ahead. Sometimes, Bonnibel mused as she hit the brakes, Gott in Himmel was good to her. Looked like her lucky night. It was a young woman, all alone and carrying an overstuffed backpack, right there on the roadside like she didn't know a bloodthirsty monster was stalking the area.

"Where are you headed, hun?" Bonnie called in her Friendliest And Most Disarming voice once she'd pulled over and rolled down her window. The woman was staring at her and swallowed nervously before she replied, in the darkness it almost looked like her eyes were the colour of old blood. But she slid gracefully into the front passenger seat and in the weak glow of the interior light they were revealed to be an odd sort of green. Bonnibel had dissected thousands of eyes and she'd never seen a pair that were such a distinct shade. They were too dark to be green, logically they should have looked brown. But somehow despite the low light they stood out perfectly like the deepest parts of the forest at twilight. Those hypnotic eyes made Bonnie catch her breath, she almost didn't hear what the woman said in reply.

"I'm just heading wherever, I need to get out of town." she mumbled, looking down with a blush.

"Boy troubles?" Bonnie asked with perfectly acted sympathy as she tried to push her distraction aside.

"Something like that." she muttered in reply. God, she was too hot. Very long silky black hair and smooth, caramel skin that that looked whisper soft to the touch. Bonnie was almost overcome with the urge to reach out and stroke it, she caught herself before she could get her hand further across than the gearstick but it was an effort. What the entire fuck?

"You're not from around here." Bonnie stated as she pulled back out onto the road. She'd definitely have remembered if she'd seen this woman before.

"No." the hitchhiker agreed. "I used to visit here a long time ago but I've not been back in years. Nobody I know is still around. It's changed."

There was something peculiar about the stranger, Bonnie was struggling to put her finger on it. What age was she, exactly? Somewhere between late teens are early middle age, it was hard to say. Did she have an accent? Bonnie couldn't be certain. What she did know was that the hitchhiker was distracting beautiful and appeared to be somewhat lost and vulnerable. Absolutely perfect.

"I was actually headed out to my secret stargazing spot, if you're not going anywhere in particular you could tag along. Didn't you see the news? There's a killer on the road out here, they found three dead women in the woods. Not a safe time to be out alone."

The stranger flinched at the mention of bodies in the woods and Bonnie almost felt a stab of guilt. Almost. Or was it anticipation? Yeah, probably.

"You're too kind. Inviting a random drifter out to your secluded stargazing spot when there's been murders in the woods, that's just asking for trouble." the hitchhiker replied with an awkward smile twisting the corner of her mouth. Bonnie let her own face wear a matching smile, it came easy after years of learning to blend in.

"You don't look like a psychopath." she said with a laugh as they drove.

"Neither do you." the woman replied.

Silence stretched between them as they left the edge of the local farm land and sped along a side track that led deep into the forest.

"I'm Bonnie, by the way." she ventured after a while.

"Marceline." the hitchhiker offered.

"So, what are you doing in our end of the country?"

She shrugged self consciously and sighed, staring out of the window.

"I wanted to see if someone I knew was still around, turns out he's not. Or at least, he is but he doesn't remember me. Alzheimer's. No point staying here now."

"I'm sorry to hear that. You don't know anyone else here? And you came out here all on your own?"

"Apparently so, yes."

"So, what do you do?"

"I'm a travelling musician. You?"

"Medical examiner."

"Hardcore. Guess you'd know best about those murders then?" Marceline asked. There was something about the way she was staring up through those long, dark lashes, something both innocent and deeply sexy in her smile. Bonnie was gay, she'd known that since she was twelve and she'd met plenty of women she'd instantly wanted to fuck. This was different though. It was like the mysterious Marceline had been designed specifically for her. She was almost too perfect.

"Yeah, I actually examined them myself just today. Nasty case, but I'm not allowed to share the details. Classified, y'know?" Bonnie replied distractedly. God, she couldn't think about anything except what those perfect lips might taste like, what was wrong with her?

"Oh. Of course, you're not allowed to talk about it. Guess it must be kinda weird, seeing the handiwork of an apex predator up close like that." the woman nodded.

The project... she was supposed to be thinking about the project, right? Sure, it was her personal obsession and the only thing that she really cared about. But Bonnie was feeling distinctly unlike herself. She was fighting the urge to tell this beautiful hitchhiker everything that she wanted to know, struggling to focus on anything else. Even driving was distractingly difficult when all she wanted to do was stare at the woman sitting in her car. Bonnie cast around for a change of subject, anything.

"So.. a musician. Cool. You must be good with your hands."

"Are you one of those creeps that picks up hitchhikers and hits on them?" Marceline purred in a voice like silk. Bonnie found herself smiling self consciously and perhaps a little coyly, found herself shooting furtive glances from the corner of her eye and admiring the other woman's sublime outline in the moonlight.

"Depends. Are you one of those hitchhikers who's open to being seduced by an attractive stranger?"

The moment the words left her lips Bonnie clamped her mouth shut and stared straight ahead at the road in confused horror. Where the hell had that come from? She was a long practiced master of elegant flirting and subtle manipulation. Nothing about that had been elegant. Her cheeks flared with an honest-to-god _blush_ and she swallowed hard against the unfamiliar taste of shame in her throat.

"That's a very forward question, Bonnibel. You're assuming I'm even into chicks."

There was a warning bell ringing in the back of her mind but Bonnie couldn't bring herself to think about it right now. Shame was giving way to desire and she could almost feel how those long slim fingers would feel sliding along her thigh. This incredible creature had chosen to get into her car and appeared to be flirting back, was this some kind of bizarre dream?

"I, uh, are you?"

"I am, as it happens. Women are just... so delicious. I've eaten recently but self control isn't one of my defining characteristics. You look so _sweet_. And here we are in the moonlight, nobody but the two of us for miles around... Do you want me to taste you, Bonnibel?"

A cool hand slid along her thigh and Bonnie's mind fizzed with heat and need. Right, that was it, she didn't care that logically it felt like the plot of a bad porno. She put her foot down and shot off up the dirt track to the extremely secret cabin she'd inherited from her great uncle. On a warm summer night with the stars overhead and a beautiful woman to seduce she didn't have any strength left to question it. In fact she was lucky they'd already gone most of the distance because otherwise she'd have been tempted to pull over and pounce on Marceline right there in the car. They pulled up outside the cabin and Bonnie slid from her seat with weak knees that barely held her up. How had Marceline gotten around to the driver's side so quickly to catch her before she swooned? Suddenly the world tilted and she found herself reclining in cool, strong arms.

"How incredible. You're completely under my power, and yet I still sense a deep murderous intent in you, Bonnibel. There's no resistance in you at all but somewhere in your mind you want to take me apart with a scalpel and see how I work. What were you going to do, fuck me then kill and dissect me?" Marceline murmured as she stared hypnotically into Bonnie's eyes.

"Yes. You're too perfect, I don't even know which part of you I want most." Bonnie answered truthfully. She should have wondered when she'd ever answered anything truthfully but all she could think was that the other woman's lips were in kissing distance and looked incredible.

"I'm curious," Marceline continued, "why you smell like death. I caught the scent on the breeze long before I saw your car, that's what drew me to the roadside. Why are you keeping body parts out in the forest where nobody can find them? I can see a lot but unfortunately my influence keeps your mind on sex and I can't get all the fine details. You're a... body builder?"

That did manage to pierce the fog of desire clouding Bonnie's mind, briefly. She blinked and struggled upright, away from the inhumanly seductive creature that she'd mistaken for a hitchhiker.

"What are you?" Bonnie demanded instead. Something was fucking with her and she didn't like it. Anger came too easily after manipulation; her hand automatically went to the concealed compartment inside her jacket pocket.

"Me? I'm what you people call a cryptid. Vampire, to be specific, but that term is so overused and misunderstood. Whatever, I don't need to justify myself to you. Come here, you delicious psycho. It's gonna feel amazing, right up to the point where you die."

Bonnie tried to dodge but her knees were weak again and all she could think about was the euphoria of those deadly fangs breaking her skin. She moaned and arched into the embrace as the vampire gathered her unresisting body back into a comfortable hold. If this was how she was going to die then Bonnie regretted nothing, not even the project-

 _THE PROJECT!_

Before teeth could find flesh her mind cleared once again and instead of the slide of fangs across her throat Bonnie pushed back, lifted her hand from her pocket and _squeezed-_

The crack of the gunshot echoed off the hills and sent terrified birds soaring from their roosts for miles around.

 _"Are you for fucking real?_ Look at my shirt, you asshole! I got this in eighty one, Prince isn't even fucking alive any more! I'm gonna fuck you up for this!"

The concealed .44 Magnum handgun that Bonnie always carried in case of an unexpected organ harvesting opportunity had blown an inch wide hole right through vampire's gut all the way to her spine. She shoved two slim fingers into the wound and pulled out the crumpled bullet with a hiss then tossed it aside while her prey scrabbled backwards towards the cabin door. Bonnie only just managed to tumble across the threshold but she knew deep down that she was dead meat and the project would die with her. Except that the sounds of pursuit stopped short at the open doorway with a thump and a grunt.

"Oh, nice going, Marcy. You fucking stupid fucknut. How many times, you get permission to enter _then_ go in for the kill. Urgh. now I'm gonna have to burn your cabin down, BonBon. Unless you want to come out here and let me eat you? I sorta hope you don't, y'know. You're so much more fun to play with than the others were." the vampire told her conversationally as she leaned against an invisible barrier in the doorway.

"I thought you said the term vampire was misunderstood?" Bonnie panted as she struggled to process what had just happened.

"Yeah, it is. We don't hang out in high schools trying to seduce dumb teenage girls and we don't fucking _sparkle._ Like Brad Pitt says in Interview With The Vampire, I'm rather fond of looking at crucifixes. And how the fuck would I managed to look this good without a reflection? Please, that's Hollywood crap. But I still need an invitation before I can enter your dwelling. I know you sleep here sometimes, otherwise I'd be drinking my fill then emptying what's left into my thermos for later. Keeps the blood warm." she added with a wink.

"That makes sense." Bonnie agreed. It did, it was completely logical. She'd probably have done the same if she was a vampire.

It was one of those surreal moments that brought with it a certain amount of clarity. Bonnibel was sprawled on her ass just inside the doorway staring up at the vampire silhouetted in the moonlight; even now she was still darkly seductive. Bonnie could feel her ribs expanding and contracting as her heavy breathing began to settle and she wondered distantly if Marceline breathed, if she'd been born human and turned into a vampire or if that was just more Hollywood crap. And that led her to wonder about the woman's anatomy, if she appeared as human inside as she did outside. If there was a way to turn the situation to her advantage or at least to keep from being eaten. But how could she fight back against a vampire, a creature that wasn't even supposed to exist and one which she was badly misinformed about?

"You're not like other humans." Marceline mused as she cocked her head and gazed across the threshold of the cabin. "Why do you stink of death? And don't say from work, I can smell the difference between a butcher and an executioner."

Bonnie considered her answer but her brain was being even less cooperative than usual. All she could think was that maybe she'd finally found someone who appreciated her tastes.

"I'm a body builder. I build bodies. I take them apart and put them back together again."

"Cute. You're a sci-fi nerd. I saw The Fly when it was first released in cinemas, terrible film."

"Yeah, it blows. But I mean it. I'm literally building bodies in here."

"As in... cutting people to pieces and stitching them together? Interesting. You've been a bad girl, haven't you, Bonnie? Those aren't just spare parts that you took from work. Some of them are people you've killed specifically to experiment on. That's why you smell like death. You are _so much_ more fun than the others." The vampire cocked her head again and flashed an irreverent grin. "Bonnibel Sugar, would you be interested in obtaining a good supply of bodies to work on without the risk of being caught murdering people?"

"I never told you my full name." was all Bonnie could think to reply.

"No, you did not. I just read it out of your thoughts. Vampire. Dark mistress of the mental arts. Close your mouth before something flies in there, shock is less cute on you than aggression."

What else was there to say? Bonnie got to her feet, still with her eyes trained hard on Marceline, and considered every angle she could. The vampire stared at her impatiently and shifted her weight from foot to foot. Evidently she wasn't used to anyone making her wait for anything, it was something they'd have to work on if they were going to work together. Wait... when had she decided they were going to work together? Didn't Marceline still want to eat her?

"Can I study you?"

It seemed like the question caught the vampire off guard and she genuinely laughed, a much more honest and earthy sound than her silky giggles in the car.

"Why would you want to study me?" Marceline asked.

"Because you interest me." Bonnie replied with a shrug. "For science, I suppose."

"Listen, if you can get a steady supply of blood for me in lean times without bringing all those cops and their filthy boots trampling through my nest then you can study me all you want. In return, when I come across a victim that's alive and it seems a good opportunity, I'll bring them to you still breathing and you can play Frankenstein with their organs once I've gotten what I need from them. Only bad people though, I picked you because you smelled like a murderer. And no more shooting me. Just because I'm undead doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like fuck. Deal?"

Bonnie considered it, staring at the woman in the gloom. An apex predator, beautiful, deadly. She was both the bait and the trap. Just like Twilight. There was no reaction on the other woman's face when she thought that and Bonnie repressed a smug smile. So the vampire wasn't in her head at that moment, interesting. If she'd heard that comparison then surely she wouldn't have stayed silent.

"How do I know I can trust you?" Bonnie finally asked. Marceline shrugged.

"You don't." she replied. "But then, how do I know I can trust you?"

"Because you can read my mind."

"Oh yeah. Huh. Well how about this? In a thousand years, you're the only mortal who managed to break my skin. Look, there's blood on my shirt! My own blood! I mean yes, I can heal the wound pretty much instantly, but it's impressive. I'm not keen to die. One day science is going to catch up with my imagination and I'll be able to travel to colonies on distant worlds, I want to be around to see that." the vampire replied with a disarming grin.

"So you can eat the entire crew of a space ship?" Bonnie asked. She couldn't resist the smile that tugged at her lips though, she wanted to travel the stars too.

"Haha, you got me! How many sci-fi movies have the 'abandoned space ship with only one sexy survivor' trope? I'm gonna eat people in zero gravity one day and then I'm gonna eat the rescue crew too! I'll be the first vampire in space!"

There was no logical way to confirm Marceline's trustworthiness, Bonnie considered. But there was also no scenario in which she could escape being eaten if that was the vampire's ultimate goal. Even waiting until daylight wasn't guaranteed, was daylight really a weakness for vampires or was that also a misunderstanding? She was literally backed into a corner. So Bonnie did what she'd always done in difficult situations, she fell back on logic and took a gamble on the best odds she had to hand. Here was a beautiful, dangerous creature of immense power that was offering her a once in a lifetime opportunity. If she had to die Bonnie could certainly do it in much less interesting ways. With a deep breath she stepped through the doorway and out of her cabin, extending her hand as she did.

"Partners?" she asked.

"Partners." Marceline confirmed, taking her hand. "So are you gonna invite me inside so I can see your experiments?"

"Of course. I'm working on a few different projects, actually. My main goal right now is to put together a functional servant who can tend the others when I'm not here. I call them Peppermint. Come on inside and I'll show you, I even have a couple of blood bags I'm not using right now if you're feeling snacky. That thermos doesn't look very hygienic, you can wash it out in here."

That warmth was back in her mind and for a moment Bonnie panicked that Marceline was subtly influencing her again. But it felt different this time, less like a haze forced across her mind from outside and more like the glow of genuine attraction that came from finding a kindred spirit. Maybe it didn't matter where it came from, Bonnie realised. Maybe she should just enjoy finally experiencing something that she'd always dismissed as just more neurotypical bullshit. She didn't let go of the vampire's hand as they toured the lab together and by the time the sun had risen she'd resolved to call into work sick. There was too much she wanted to do that day and for once it didn't involve cutting up dead bodies.

The next time Finn asked Bonnie to go for a drink with him she graciously accepted and he spent the day walking around on a cloud of euphoria. Imagine his disappointment when he got to the pub for his date only to be introduced to her new partner. Still, Finn couldn't fault Bonnie's taste in women. There was something hypnotic about Marceline, he'd never seen eyes like hers and her silvery laugh filled him with a sort of warm yearning to get closer to her, maybe take her someplace private and- Bonnie kicked her girlfriend's leg under the table and the warmth faded from Finn's mind. He didn't have long to worry about it though, it was a rare occasion when he had a night off to go out with friends. He was working so much overtime because of the disappearances. No more bodies turned up in the woods but people still went missing at an alarming rate. Always bad people, the sort of people nobody would shed a tear over or the kind of scum who'd slipped through the cracks of the criminal justice system.

Months passed with no leads, nothing but a steady trickle of missing criminals. All of them universally hated, all of them disappeared without any witnesses or prime suspects. It was almost like the killer was deliberately waiting until everyone close to their victims had an iron cast alibi, almost like they were fucking with him personally. Finn scrutinized everyone around him, all his fellow detectives, but he found no trace of guilt anywhere he looked. It was as if the victims just disappeared into the night. It bothered him but there was nothing he could do, not even staring at the missing persons reports piled high on his desk for hours after his colleagues went home led him anywhere.

Eventually Finn came to the conclusion that they were dealing with an extremely clever vigilante, some misguided soul who sought justice when the police were powerless. Like a darker, more twisted Batman. Or Batwoman, as Jake still insisted on pointing out. It wasn't statistically likely but the killer could be a woman.


End file.
